


Restoration

by silver_fish



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang (Avatar)-centric, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Alternating, Post-Canon, Trauma, not canon compliant with the comics, pre relationship i guess, this is kinda uhh experimental i guess idk if it really has much plot its just a vibe rly, you can probably read it platonically?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: The world is healing, but the Avatar is not.
Relationships: Aang/Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 102





	Restoration

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laphicets) / [tumblr](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)
> 
> i have a disease that makes me love zutaraang, its called being a fricking genius.
> 
> anyway, i just really love aang man...but of course everyone has trauma so what i started writing as an aang-centric fic sort of wound up...well, i think it _is_ still aang centric, but i tried to get into katara's and zuko's experiences and struggles at this specific time a little bit too. this is set pretty much right after the last episode. i said it's not canon compliant with the comics because it's not...technically...but thats not to say the events of those wouldnt happen later. i mean, there's no year gap here so. yeah. anyway! i had a bad case of writer's block and tried to solve it through this. idk if it helped but hey, here's this. hope you enjoy!

Katara lived her life in war.

Ever since she was a little girl, she has known that _this_ is her reality. Maybe she did always believe the Avatar would return. Maybe, after he did, she believed he would end the war. But her earliest memories are of fire and loss and knowledge no child should ever have to bear.

She lived her life in war, but now the war is over.

She can feel the changes within her, bone-deep, running through her heart, her bloodlines; inside of herself she has found the purity of water as she has always been meant to understand it—healing, _restorative_. A year ago, she did not know balance.

But a year ago, she did not know Aang.

Now, they are all trying to pick up their pieces. It has only been days since the end, days since Aang stood beside Zuko—Fire Lord Zuko—at his coronation, days since Katara and Zuko fought Azula. She still struggles to sleep at night, worried about what tomorrow will bring. She figures the others are probably no different.

They’re still in the Fire Nation for now, but it won’t be long before they go their separate ways. Suki will return to the Kyoshi Warriors, of course, and Sokka will go home, to be with their father; Toph doesn’t know what she wants to do yet, exactly, but she knows it isn’t in the Fire Nation.

Katara…well, she’s less sure.

She would like to stay with Aang, wherever he winds up, but perhaps he is the most lost of all of them. He has met his destiny head-on, and now…

It doesn’t _seem_ to weigh on him, though. She watches and listens, but he is the same as ever, full smiles and pleasant words, like he is just as grateful as she is that all of this is finally over—and she’s sure he is, of course. Why wouldn’t he be?

But Aang did not live his life in war.

It’s easy to forget. The rest of them are far too young to remember a time _before_ the war. By all means, Aang should be too, except that he isn’t. There are realities Katara has grown up with, things she has never really had to _understand_ , because she has simply always known them. Things that Aang has had to learn within a year, when Katara has had her whole life.

The end of the war means something different to him. What that is, though, Katara can’t really say just yet, but he still smiles when he sees her, and she thinks—

It is okay. The war has left its mark on them all, but the world is healing. She is healing, and she thinks—is sure—that Aang is healing too

x

 _Fire Lord_.

It was a dream once. A future he strove for. It represented more than his birthright. It was about his honour, and respect, and the family he understands now did not ever love him.

 _Fire Lord Zuko_. It doesn’t feel right, though. He is successor to Fire Lord Ozai. He stole this title from Azula—Princess Azula, who wrongly believed she could become Fire Lord Azula. Fire Lord Azulon, Fire Lord Sozin… And now, here he is: Fire Lord Zuko.

He always assumed that his uncle had once dreamed of being Fire Lord too. Maybe, a long time ago, he had. But in the time Zuko knew him, that can’t possibly have been the case. He remembers Iroh as something sturdy, kind, someone who would never give up on him…but, too, he remembers Iroh as a fierce general, one he only really got to speak to through letters and gifts from far-off lands. There were so many stories about him, things that made Azulon proud, that made Ozai _despise_ him.

But Zuko has always respected him, even when the word _respect_ still felt like fire against his face.

In the days after his coronation, he thinks of Iroh often. He is sure, now, in a way he never has been before that Iroh _is_ proud of him. He plays the host to his friends, the Avatar and the others, and he knows that he has grown—grown because of Iroh.

His destiny is not over, not the way he thought it would be by now. He has ascended to the throne, and now he must find peace within himself in order to give it to his nation. He brings it from his friends, from his uncle, from the good memories he has cultivated atop the soils of a painful childhood.

Peace was not _his_ creed. Even now, he isn’t always sure if Aang did the right thing. He falls asleep at night, uneasy, knowing his father is still alive, breathing, too close to where Zuko is now for any true peace of mind. He thinks of Ozai and Azula and Ursa, of family vacations that will never again be, of banishment and insanity and _power_ , and there is now a scar on his chest like the one on his face, but—

They are just scars.

They will not go away, but they don’t hurt anymore. He is healing, as surely as the world is, as his nation is. He thinks he can see it in the others, too, in Katara and Sokka, Suki and Toph…but Aang is the same as ever. There was a time when Zuko believed the Avatar’s life _had_ to be easy, simply because it was the Avatar’s. He knows, now, that that isn’t the truth, but he can’t help thinking, anyway, that Aang does not really need to heal the way he has had to, maybe if only because Aang has always been _that much_ stronger, wiser, so much older than all of them are.

He did not, after all, grow up with the weight of war upon his shoulders.

Zuko doesn’t worry about him much. He has needed help in the past, certainly, but he _is_ the Avatar. He has ended this war for them. He has brought the world into its next era—that of peace, and healing.

Restoration.

Zuko is healing. He can only hope the rest of the world is too.

x

There is a distance to him.

Perhaps he feels untouchable, now, because of the crown atop his head. Katara has grown up despising the Fire Lord, but now he is her friend. She knows he is, because he has already proved it to her again and again.

But in the palace, there is distance.

When they eat together, it is nothing like the meals around the campfire she has grown accustomed to. They sleep so far away from one another, even though it is the same roof over all their heads.

Maybe Zuko isn’t _really_ the furthest from her now. Maybe it is Aang, who has always been distant if only because he is a relic of a lost time, a time she cannot understand, or maybe it is Sokka, her brother, the person she has shared her entire life with but can’t stay by her side forever.

Zuko is the one she notices, though. She waits outside his chambers after everyone else has retired to their own. She waits and she waits and she waits, but the moon is already high in the sky when he returns—and yet, he does not seem surprised to see her.

“I’m fine,” he says, before she can ask. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

She hesitates, right up until he offers a hand out to her. It is easy to take it, like there is no distance, like there has never been any at all.

The palace is an imposing structure, but Katara has found that its insides are not as stifling as she had expected. It is cool between the walls, the absence of warmth she supposes had once crept into Zuko’s heart but has since thawed out. This, too, will become something new, something healed…

“I’ve been thinking about my mother,” she finally says, and Zuko seems as unsurprised by her words as she is. “I think she would’ve wanted to see the world like this. I’m sorry that she can’t.”

“I’m sorry too,” Zuko says. “I think the same of my mother...but she’s out there somewhere, I’m sure of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s alive.” He glances over to her briefly, then turns his gaze firmly forward again. “I’ll find her someday. I know it.”

She knows that he doesn’t really, but she doesn’t say so.

Instead, she says, “I think it’s helped.”

“What has?”

“The end of the war.” She pauses a moment, uncertain, and then ploughs on: “I’ve spent years trying to maintain my hope. My bending...that was a sign of hope, but for a long time, it didn’t mean much. I guess I always thought...my mother protected me—the last waterbender of the Southern Tribe—and I was a lousy bender anyway. I wasn’t worth the sacrifice. Now...I think she would have been proud of us anyway. But I’m glad that this—this sign of hope has really gotten to _mean_ something.”

“And Aang?”

“What about him?”

“He gave you hope as well, didn’t he?”

She snorts. “I could say the same of _you_.”

His lips twitch up a bit. “That’s true,” he allows. “After I was banished, my search for the Avatar was all I had. It did give me hope that, one day, I could restore my honour and return home the son my father had always wanted. When I did come back, I realized that I was hoping for the wrong thing. I had to hope for the future you all were striving for too.”

Suddenly, he stops. She comes to a halt beside him, hardly daring to breathe in the stillness of the nighttime corridor.

“Do you ever wonder what gave him hope?”

She isn’t expecting it. The question strikes deep, hits at a heartstring she had not realized could even be pulled… She has wondered, of course. She remembers him—lost and confused before the rotted corpse of Monk Gyatso. It was not the first time she saw him enter the Avatar State, but it was the first time she understood exactly what the Avatar State _meant_.

After a long moment, she finds her answer: “Us, I guess. We’re his family, aren’t we?”

Zuko’s lips press into a thin line. He nods. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

With that, he keeps walking. Katara wastes no time in following after him, their steps echoing down the palace halls in absence of the words they will not speak.

 _Hope_. It is a simple thing, but complex too. It has always been Katara’s friend, even when she was sure it was lost. She knows Aang well, as does Zuko. If there is anyone who understands hope, it _must_ be him. He has given it to so many people, after all. He has given it to the entire world.

And they have given it to him.

Haven’t they?

x

There is a pond in the palace courtyard, one Zuko still finds himself drawn to after all this time. He feeds the turtle ducks and thinks of his mother and wonders, sometimes, if the space in his heart carved out by Azula and Ozai can ever be filled with something else, something like this.

Today, someone is already sitting at the pond when he gets there.

“I’ve never really seen them before,” Aang tells him. “In the air temples, there were different creatures.”

Zuko lowers himself down beside Aang, carefully so as to not scare away the turtle ducks that have gathered at the edge of the pond. “Like Momo.”

“Yeah. And Appa. Even now, not all the life has gone from them.”

Just last night, he spoke to Katara about _family_.

“My mother used to feed the turtle ducks here,” Zuko says quietly. “I would join her sometimes, but mostly I didn’t really see the point. Not until she was already gone.”

Aang doesn’t look at him. “They taught me that all life is sacred. I know you wanted me to kill him, but—”

“No. You did what you felt was best. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Aang reaches a hand out towards the turtle ducks, then pulls it back just before one of them touches him, getting to his feet with the quickness Zuko has come to expect from him—an airbender, _weightless_ , so very light on his feet…

“I’m sorry. I’ll see you later, Zuko.”

And then he is gone, like he was never even there in the first place.

Zuko turns his gaze back to the turtle ducks. It is summer, and the smallest ones are growing, losing their fluffy coats as they gain their first feathers. They don’t fly, though. They can’t.

A long time ago, he watched Azula torment the creatures in this pond. He thought that he could do it too—could be strong like her, their father’s favourite, _born lucky_.

He wonders, sometimes, if Aang—his friend Aang, the Avatar, the last Air Nomad—sees this side of him. It is still there, a hunger that threatens to consume his heart if he lets it sit unobserved for too long. He is not his father, but he bears his title: _Fire Lord Zuko_ , son of Ozai and Ursa, brother to Azula…

But his family is here. Here, sat before this pond, guests within the halls of this palace. He has found them, chosen them, been accepted by them. For each moment of consideration he gives Azula and Ozai, he thinks of Aang and Katara, of Sokka and Toph and Suki. He thinks of Iroh, who is not here now but still exists within him, always, the voice to guide him in the dark.

 _Family_. He was born with one, in word alone.

But he found it along the way. There is something in his chest, a hole carved there by the lightning his father and sister command, and slowly, certainly, it is being filled with warmth—with water and air, earth and fire, and, he supposes, sword and fan. Even if there is no more war to fight, he knows that “Team Avatar” will not leave him. No matter where they go, they are _family_.

Family is all any of them needs.

x

Sokka leaves.

He goes with their father and the other members of the Southern Water Tribe who are still in Fire Nation territory. It will be a long journey, but he knows it. He tells her to come visit soon, but not _too_ soon.

“And bring Aang along too,” he adds. “I’m sure they’ll want to see him again.”

She agrees, and hugs him. And then he is gone, but there is no emptiness in his departure. It is bittersweet, perhaps, but she knows she will return to them, her family. Knows that distance does not mean _distance_ , because distance is—

 _Distance_ is what Zuko is talking about when he asks, “Is Aang all right?” and she says, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him all day. Why? Did something happen?”

“No,” he says after a long moment, but she is reaching out for his wrist before he can turn away from her.

“Are _you_ all right?”

“Fine.” A small hesitation, then he pulls his hand back, away from hers. “I think I know where he is. Follow me.”

He doesn’t give her any time to speak as he leads her down winding halls, carved pathways, down and down and down… They stop in front of a heavy metal door, guarded by one of the Fire Nation’s men.

It is purely instinct that has Katara on guard, but Zuko isn’t fazed, hardly seems to notice…

“Was the Avatar here?”

“Yes, sir. Not so long ago.”

Katara’s stomach churns as Zuko asks, “Did you let him in?”

“No, my lord.”

Zuko is still grimacing, though, even as he thanks the guard and turns away, gestures for Katara to follow him.

She catches up to him, nearly stumbling. He is walking very fast, as if he wants even more than she does to get away from here, as if he, too, is worried about being hurt by one of the Fire Nation…

“Zuko, where are we going?”

He slows, just a bit. “To find Aang.”

“Yes, but...you still haven’t told me what’s wrong.”

A pause. And then: “Do you know who’s behind that door?”

Something cold settles in Katara’s gut. “No,” but she has a guess, and it’s not a pleasant one.

“My father.” He spits the words out, like they are bitter and painful in his mouth. “I thought I wished Aang had killed him, but…it’s complicated, I guess. I don’t think Aang really feels guilty for not killing him, though. Right?”

Katara’s eyebrows furrow. “Well, no. Why would he?”

“Exactly.” They come to a stop in the hall outside the room Katara’s been sleeping in. Just down the hall is Aang’s, and then Toph’s.

“Zuko, did he say something to you?”

Zuko finally meets her eyes. “I don’t know.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.” He shakes his head. “You know him better than I do. Maybe you should go talk to him.”

“But I don’t know what I’m talking to him _about_.”

“Well, I don’t know! The war? My father? Momo and Appa?”

“Momo and— What?”

But just as Zuko is opening his mouth to speak, Aang is right behind them:

“Did you guys see Sokka?”

They both turn to face him, tight-lipped.

He frowns. “I don’t think they’re gone yet. If you—”

“Aang, why did you go to see Ozai?”

At her words, his jaw snaps shut, his gaze drifting away from her. She sees him tense—it is a familiar posture. He is preparing to run.

“You should stay away from there,” Zuko tells him. “My father doesn’t need his bending to hurt people.”

A twitch, the slight shift of his foot. “I know that. I didn’t talk to him.”

“But you wanted to.”

One step back.

“I don’t think Zuko’s upset,” Katara says quickly. “We just want to understand why you thought it would be a good idea. Especially all by yourself.”

Stillness. His eyes lock with hers, wide and grey yet so unlike the ones she remembers blinking up at her on that icy shore, the boy from the iceberg…

“I know it was a stupid idea. You don’t have to tell me.”

Katara recognizes this tone, coupled with his body language—he doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to concern her—them—with the weight on his shoulders, a weight she hasn’t even realized he’s been carrying.

“Yeah, but…why’s it an idea you even had in the first place?” Zuko’s eyebrow is raised, incredulous, but isn’t the answer obvious?

“I don’t think you should feel bad about not killing him, Aang. You said yourself that it was—”

“That’s not the point,” he snaps. When Katara falters, shocked, he sighs. “Sorry. I just—it’s not that. I don’t really know… I _do_ know I did the right thing. I’m just still, uh, trying to wrap my head around everything? I mean, what do we do _now_ , or… Well, anyway, I know better. I won’t go down there again.”

“But we’re not saying you would,” Zuko points out. “Just trying to understand why you did it in the first place. I guess…I’ve thought about talking to him too, but he’s my father. That’s a little different.”

Something in Aang’s expression, shifts, darkens. If Zuko notices, he doesn’t react, but Katara can’t quite help it:

“You don’t have to decide what’s best for Zuko either, Aang.” She glances at Zuko briefly, then meets Aang’s eyes again. “If you’re having conflicted feelings, you can tell us. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

There is a hesitation, something suspended in the air between them, and then—

“I’m not having conflicted feelings,” he says lightly. “Anyway, like I was saying, Sokka and the others haven’t gone yet. You should both go talk to them before they do.”

She opens her mouth to say that she _has_ said good-bye, but Zuko puts a hand on her shoulder and it snaps shut again, shock running painfully down from her jaw to her chest.

By the time she recovers, Aang is gone.

She shakes Zuko’s hand away and turns to him, fists clenched at her sides. “What are you doing? You can’t just let him walk away from this!”

“I’m not,” he says quietly. “I don’t think it’s something he can walk away from. Let’s go see them off, Katara. We can talk to Aang later.”

She thinks to protest, to struggle and turn her back on him and run after Aang, but…

The palace is so large, full of places for a young and nimble airbender to hide. And outside these walls, preparing for their launch across the ocean, is her family—or part of it, at least.

If Kya cannot be here herself, then the least Katara can do is watch them go one last time, not to war but to peace, knowing her mother would do the very same.

x

They don’t talk to Aang later, though.

He has made himself scarce, but for what purpose, Zuko couldn’t possibly say. He thinks of himself, thirteen years old with a bandage over his eye, half-blind and terrified, forced out of the only place he had ever called _home_.

There was only one hand reaching out to him then, and it took three years for him to take it.

He has not been so fixated on his childhood since he betrayed Iroh in Ba Sing Se. He confronted Ozai during the eclipse, said all those words about _deserving_ , whatever that means, but even then he was not thinking of the pain that has followed him in the shape of a scar across his face. Then, he was thinking of Iroh and Azula and what _family_ means. Then, he realized: this is what it means to _heal_.

He has been healing ever since. And even if sometimes it feels like Ozai’s heartbeat is coming up through the very floor beneath his feet, he knows he still is. It is just a scar, nothing more, even in the late hours of the night when his throat sears and his head aches and the ghost of his father’s fire is all he can see.

There’s the second one now too. On his chest, just beneath his heart, a symbol of the love he bled for his sister and their father and never got back. But he does not hate them for it, not really; especially Azula, who he pities, who has only understood _family_ as _authority_ , who has never known _trust_ because all she has ever needed is _fear_.

There is some sort of irony in it, that this wound—this scar, etched into him with the intent to kill—is not the one that still keeps him up at night, heart beating fast, clammy, shaking hands, stuck in the head of a child who did not yet comprehend _good_ or _bad_ as something people could _be_ just as they could _do_. But there is a difference to him, two years of hopeless banishment and another of something else altogether, and he is no longer the child he was, no longer believes that he will ever _deserve_ to be hurt, not when he knows how to fight back.

He has grown, and he has healed, and it is just a scar.

But it doesn’t stop the dreams.

He wakes tonight and rises on shaky legs, which guide him to that same pond, the one the turtle ducks swim in, the one he so often sat at with his mother, the one he spoke to Aang by only yesterday.

He doesn’t really know why he’s come. He’s not dressed, his hair flows down, ever nearer to his shoulders...it has grown quite a lot since then. _He_ has grown quite a lot.

Aang is light on his feet, quiet, but Zuko has learned to listen for him, to find him, and yet when he sits down beside Zuko just as he did before, Zuko wonders which of them really did find the other.

“It’s late,” Zuko says, pointlessly.

“Why do you think Katara stayed?”

Zuko turns his gaze on the pond. It is still, black as the night sky it reflects. The turtle ducks are not here. He stops to wonder, for perhaps the first time, where they sleep, if not right on top of the water.

“I don’t know.” It’s not a lie; he would be kidding himself if he tried to pretend he understands why Katara does anything she does. After a pause, though, he ventures, “Maybe she stayed for you?”

“Maybe.” Quiet, pensive. Then: “What about you?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to be, do I?”

“No, I mean...don’t you think she stayed for you too?”

“Oh.” Did she? “Uh, well...maybe. I guess it’s nice to have her around. And you too,” he’s quick to add. “Everyone, I mean. I think it’s been a long time since there was a family living in this place.”

Aang pulls his legs up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, resting his chin in between his knees. For a long moment, Zuko just watches him, waiting, and then he sighs.

“I had a family once, I think. It was big. We lived in every corner of the world, but it wasn’t so hard to come together. There were times we did—festivals, holidays… We all belonged to something, and now it’s gone.”

Zuko can’t look at him anymore.

“I know it’s been a hundred years,” Aang says. “But sometimes it still feels like the next time I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and I’ll be home again. I know that...even by the standards of the Air Nomads, it was never really meant to be permanent—we aren’t _supposed_ to be attached to the place we grew up, or to the monks who raised us. But it’s still hard to process sometimes, you know? One day, it was all there. The next day, it wasn’t.”

It is easy to forget, sometimes, that Aang is a relic of _another time_. That, if things had been different, Aang would have been the enemy of Zuko’s grandfather Azulon. But, then, if things had been different, maybe he would not have lived past twelve at all. There is no point in wondering, because this is what _is_.

After a heavy pause, Aang says, “I guess that doesn’t make a lot of sense. I have a family here now too, don’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean you have to forget about your first family,” Zuko mutters. “I haven’t.”

“But they’re still alive.”

“Doesn’t that make it worse?”

Aang is silent. There is no breeze tonight, not so much as a whisper. The pond stands still before them.

“I mean, my father and Azula—I would like to forget about them. I don’t want them to be _family_ ever again, after everything… But I spent a long time trying to win their love. It’s not all gone. As long as they’re both still alive…”

“I’ve never been very good at not getting attached to people,” Aang admits. “For a while, I wasn’t sure...I wondered if it really _was_ a weakness. But I don’t think it is. Without Katara...without _you_ , all of you, I don’t really know…”

Zuko listens hard to the silence, but there is nothing in it, no words hidden in the air, nothing heavy strung within its lightness…

“I guess I wondered what the point was sometimes,” he finally says. “Everything I knew is gone. It won’t come back, will it?”

“No,” Zuko says quietly. “I don’t think it will.”

When he glances over, Aang’s eyes are closed, as if in pain.

“I said I wouldn’t dwell on the past anymore. It’s over. I can’t change anything, and I don’t know if I would even _want_ to, but… I can’t even count on both my hands the number of holidays that have passed in the past year—the past _hundred_ years that nobody ever celebrated. And how am I supposed to unite the world when one quarter of it isn’t even here anymore?”

“Well... _you’re_ here, right?”

Aang shakes his head. “Then it all dies with me. Even if it’s a hundred years from now…”

Zuko opens his mouth to say something like, _A lot can change in a hundred years_ or _One hundred years is a pretty long time to live_ , but then he closes it, faltering. It has already been gone a hundred years.

“I guess there’s nothing I can really do about it,” Aang mutters. “I just haven’t had so much time to think about it since...well, everything.”

But Zuko can’t possibly understand. Maybe Katara could, but the South Pole is still standing, isn’t it? Small, but standing, and now Sokka and Hakoda are going to rebuild, now that the Fire Nation is leaving the area alone.

The air temples, though… They are still standing. Even Aang said himself, there is still _some_ life inside of them. And yet, nobody will ever see them the way Aang does. Nobody will ever understand what it's _supposed_ to be, what it once was.

“Never mind.” Aang sighs, lifting his head and stretching his legs out. “Why are _you_ here?”

Zuko grimaces. “I couldn’t really sleep.”

“Too much time to think?”

“To remember.”

He nods. “I don’t know what I would have said, you know. I guess my feelings have been a _bit_ conflicted. Katara...she has enough to deal with right now.”

Zuko’s lips twitch. “And I don’t?”

A laugh, the first he has heard from Aang in what feels like a very long time. “Well, yeah, but you’re the one who’s out here tonight.”

“Why are _you_ here?” He pauses, then adds, “ _Here_ , I mean, this pond specifically. Why?”

“I sort of got the feeling it meant something to you.”

It does. Of course it does. “That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“I thought maybe you shouldn’t be alone.” He looks away, voicing dropping as he says, “Or maybe I didn’t want to be alone. I’m not really sure.”

“Okay.” Zuko leans back slightly, looks up to the stars. “Thanks for telling me.”

Aang says nothing, but Zuko didn’t really expect him to.

They stay there, together, until he falls asleep. It isn’t such a long time, not really; Zuko gets the feeling that he hasn’t been sleeping well for some time now. His head falls against Zuko’s shoulder, nearly so light he doesn’t even feel it, but he can hear his breaths, long and deep and slow, can sense his heartbeat, still so steady for someone who has carried so much death upon his shoulders.

Zuko doesn’t have the heart to wake him, so he doesn’t.

They stay there, together.

x

Katara finds them in the morning.

She’s not quite awake yet herself, but she gets the sense, something deep within her, that she should be wherever they are. It has been like this for a while, a steady thrum in her chest.

She searches for a while, but it isn’t difficult to find them. She has noticed Zuko is fond of this place in particular, but she hasn’t really stopped to wonder _why_. As she approaches, he glances back and makes a brief shushing motion. Aang is beside him, head fallen down on his lap, apparently deeply asleep.

Katara nods and tiptoes towards them, lowering herself down on Aang’s right side. She leans closer to look at him, then tilts her head up to Zuko in silent questioning.

“Let him sleep,” he whispers. “I think it’s been a while since he has.”

She can’t help but laugh a bit at that. “Didn’t realize you were such a sentimental guy, Zuko.”

To her surprise, his cheeks go red. He looks away from her, muttering something along the lines of, “I’m _not_.”

She reaches forward and runs a gentle hand over Aang’s cheek. “I think it’s sweet. You really love him, don’t you?”

Zuko tenses. Aang stirs slightly, and Zuko—with obvious effort—relaxes again. In seconds, he is fastly asleep once again.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say,” Zuko says stiffly. “We’re friends. Of course I care.”

But even as he says, she knows he isn’t being entirely honest. Knows, because she feels it too.

“I should’ve noticed,” she murmurs.

Zuko’s gaze rests on her for a long moment, then falls down to Aang.

“You did notice,” he says. “Isn’t it why you stayed?”

“I...I don’t really know.”

“He obviously needs you.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Doesn’t he need you too?” She frowns. “I mean, you’re here now, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t answer her. Does not even look at her.

“Zuko—”

“I don’t think we should talk about it, Katara.”

She bites her tongue, contemplating, but she gets no chance to say anything before Aang’s eyes are fluttering open. He blinks groggily up at her, then tilts his head just so to look at Zuko.

“What time—” He cuts himself with a yawn. With some amusement, Katara notes that he has not lifted his head from Zuko’s lap, a fact that has Zuko flushing all over again.

“It’s morning,” she tells him, reaching a hand out to intertwine with one of his. “Weren’t you going to tell us you were sleeping badly again?”

He pushes himself up now, turning his gaze to the pond. All at once, his exhaustion seems to fade away. She gets the idea that he has become very good at hiding it from them, and hopes she is wrong.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” he finally says.

“I’m always worrying about you, you know.”

He winces. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t—”

“I don’t mean that in a _bad_ way, Aang.” She tightens her grip on his hand. “I care about you, that’s all. That’s what families do. We worry about each other.”

Zuko makes a small movement, like he is going to get up, but then Aang says, “There’s nothing to worry about.”

Zuko scoffs. “You’re kidding, right? You’re _allowed_ to be upset about it. It doesn’t matter if you have a new family now or not. You don’t have anything _left_ , except for Appa. You don’t even have your glider anymore! If you’re thinking about it now, maybe that means you haven’t thought about it _enough_ already.”

There is a pause, and then—

Aang is crying, Zuko closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, and she can so perfectly imagine what must be going through his head right now, well enough that it just barely keeps her from chastising him herself.

But maybe he doesn’t need to feel bad about it; Aang is speaking around his tears:

“It feels like a whole part of me is _missing_. My people...I can’t bring them back. The war is over, but they’re still gone, and just one...just a year ago, they weren’t. But it’s really been a hundred years…” His shoulders are hunched, his breaths heavy and constricted. “How can the world heal when they’re all gone?”

“What about you, Aang?”

He turns to look at her, blinking. She presses her free hand against his cheek and wipes his tears away, even as more fall in their place.

“What about me?” he asks weakly, and if it were not so heart-breaking, she might have laughed at how much he sounds like Zuko did just minutes ago.

“You need to heal too,” she reminds him. “What good is a healed world if the Avatar hasn’t healed with it?”

He visibly swallows. “I’m _trying_ —”

“But you don’t have to do this all alone.”

“Right,” says Zuko. “How could you do it alone?”

“My people are gone.” He closes his eyes tightly, face scrunched up with a misery that reminds Katara of the Southern Air Temple, all those months ago…

“We’re here,” she says hoarsely. “All of us are. I know...I know it’s not the same, but we’re here.”

“I...I know that.”

“Look at me, Aang.”

He opens his eyes. She offers him a tremulous smile.

“I don’t think it’s supposed to stop hurting. And...and I think that’s okay. But you’re here. If they can’t be here too, then—you get to let them live through you. And I think they would want you to be happy, wouldn’t they?”

Slowly, he nods.

“Then...will you let me help you?”

This time, when Zuko makes to stand, Aang reaches up and grabs his hand, pulling him back down.

“Us,” Katara corrects, and Aang smiles.

“I do love you too, you know.”

Zuko turns away from them, but it is not enough to hide the creeping blush. “You can’t have been awake that whole time. What’s wrong with you?”

“I wasn’t,” Aang admits. “Kinda...half-awake, at least. But I mean it. Both of you.”

Katara knew that already, though. And now that she has had some time—time to think, and to understand—she thinks she gets it.

She leans against him, letting her eyes fall shut contentedly. “We love you too.”

“Ugh.” Zuko shifts slightly, but he hasn’t dropped Aang’s hand, has not made any move to get away. “Yeah, I mean...I guess so.”

“Let’s just stay here for a while,” Aang says quietly.

And they do.

x

It’s always the same dream.

There’s a storm, and a war, and fire. There is his home, the first place he ever belonged. There is everything, too far for him to reach, too close for him to avoid, but he is stuck.

There’s a storm, and a war, and fire, and Aang cannot escape any of it.

But, then, there is light. There is Katara, smiling, reaching out for him. There, behind her, from the flames, is Zuko—Zuko as they first met him, angry and ruthless, and Aang opens his mouth to warn her, but—

Then it changes, and she is reaching out for Zuko, and he is changing. The fire is disappearing, the storm is clearing. When they turn to him, his family, the people he loves, he only hears silence.

It is over, and there is nothing.

But they are here. They are close enough to touch, to hold and protect, but they do not need his protection, do they? It is over. The storm, the war, the fire. It has left his world too empty, and yet it is not _completely_ empty.

When they reach out for him, he accepts their hands. It does not change what is gone, but it is something.

And for now, that is enough. It has to be.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx
> 
> (p.s. catch me on twitter [@laphicets](https://twitter.com/laphicets) or tumblr [@kohakhearts](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com) for writing updates. i also sometimes take writing requests on both!)


End file.
